Archive for November, 2010

One of the many deserted beaches along the beautiful Ibiza coast line.

The last 3 weeks since the Home de Ferro race we have stayed in a nice apartment in Ibiza town. One draw back was that there was no internet in the apartment, but there was a library next door with free internet so we used that regularly. The only thing is, I am a very large amount lazier than Bella(although I don’t like to call it “lazy” I usually say to Bella that it is because I am a man and I have different hormones and so I need a nap sometimes) and so hence I have not been keeping up with my interneting as much as Bella.

Anyhow, the training has been great here in Ibiza.

A normal day starts with Breakfast and Spanish news on TV, I studied Sapnish at School(I got a D(for dunce):) so I told Bella I understood it all and would guess what the daily news was from the pictures and the odd word I could understand.

We would swim at the very nice 25m indoor pool in Ibiza town. Which was one of 3 in the town and there are many more pools around the island.

The riding was excellent. Very good road surface, some flat riding lots of hilly riding, and all very very quiet, especially on the north side of the island.

Another beautifull emapty beach, have it all to yourself at this time of year!

We would run at the 400m track or down the promenade, it is great to run by the sea, there is something energising about the ocean.

In between session we would pop to the supermarket, which their was a wide choice of, but our considerations were: Could we leave our bike safely, was it on route and did they sell greek yoghurt:)

Of an evening there I would enjoy my usual ritual, which is the same whatever part of the world I am in, of sitting in front of the TV with a smal beer. I had a choice of a few american TV shows that were on in english everynight, same shows in the same order. So it would start with “My name is Earl” They would show 3 straight episodes every night! I loved this show, I had never really seen much of it before, but it has become my favourite TV show at the moment.
Then we would get 2 episodes os “Scubs”, I also grew to like this but not as much as “my name is Earl”
I would then start to get very tierd but would hang in there to watch 1 episode of “American Dad” I also liked this show alot, very funny:) I would occasionally stay up to watch the next episode of “american Dad” but by this time it was 9pm and so I was pretty much dead by then!

At this moment we are in Cancun, Mexico. Today we take a short flight across to Cozumel wheere I will race the Ironman on Sunday.

Bella and I are on the front page of the the Diario de Ibiza this morning with this photo and the title “Man and Woman of Iron”

So this is the picture on the front page of the Ibiza news, nice:)

Ibiza is special to both of us as we have raced here and won a few times. I won my age group at the World Long Distance championships here in Ibiza in 2003, then Bella and I both won here in 2006, Bella also won here in 2002. Then yesterday we managed to both win again, it is actually our first double win as a married couple:)

As Bella has said in her blog, we woke up to wind a rain bashing on our window the morning of the race. It was going to add a little extra challenge to the day.

So my race started well. In the swim there was a group of 4 of us that bashed through the waves in the swim to exited onto the bikes together.

I was in 2nd place for the first 10km which was a straight section of road, then the next 10km was a twisty hilly section then a dead turn and back to the start, 3 laps in total. I went to the front on the twisty section and gapped 2 of the group, I stayed in the lead till the next lap with 1 guy still behind. I managed to gap him this time on this section and so pushed on. I was feeling good and had a good lead, then, pisshhh, oh sh+t, a puncture, so I stop and change the tubular pretty quickly but I get passed. I get going again and give chase. I managed to catch him, then tried hard to get a gap again, this time it was harder as my legs were tired but on the main climb I got a gap and so pushed on.

At the end of the bike I had a 1min 30sec lead. The run had 2 out and back sections so I could see my competition. I could see 2nd place was running well and over the course of the run was taking some time out of me and got to 30secs with 1 lap of 7.5km to go. I gave it what I had left and found some extra pace and pulled away to win by 2min 30secs. It was a great feeling to win.

I had seen out on the course that Bella had a really good lead and looked comfortable so I was confident she would come home with the win too, which she did and I greeted her at the finish line and we were both so happy to have come to Ibiza and again managed to both win.

Infact it was important we both won. Because in 2006 when we both won here before, my parents were here to watch, which was fantastic, but they took all the papers with our pictures in home, but the bag got lost! So this year we had to come back and get some new news papers with our pictures on.

A big thank you to Emma for all her support yesterday it was great to have you there to give us splits and just give us great support all weekend, thank you!